Keeper of the Spatula

Chapter 15: High Tension Waters

Later in
the early evening (sky was still gray so it was hard to tell), Plankton had
opened his eye and sat up to see SpongeBob, Patrick, and Squidward still asleep
by the ledge of the cliff. Plankton smirked and got up before quietly sneaking
over to Patrick’s mini fridge.

“Time for
Plan: Separate-Idiot-From-Idiots.” Plankton whispered to himself as he opened
the fridge to see SpongeBob’s three krabby patties sitting inside.

He pulled
them out and struggled to carry all three at the same time. He wobbled over to
the edge of the cliff and suddenly dropped them over the ledge.

“Phew,”
Plankton sighed in exhaustion as he stared at the patties drop down out of
sight. “In all my years of work, I never thought the day would come when I’d
have to do something like that. But soon, it’ll all be worth it.” He smirked as
he pulled out a chunk of lettuce. “Now to set the crumb.”

He quietly
snuck over to Squidward and carefully planted the lettuce on his cloak.
Afterwards, Squidward yawned and stretched as he woke up while Plankton stood
there with an innocent-looking grin as he placed his hands behind his back.
Squidward sat up, looking sleep-eyed as he looked around. “What time is it?” he
groggily asked.

SpongeBob
and Patrick woke up as well with the sponge jumping up as he stretched his arms
out enthusiastically. “What a good sleep.” He said cheerfully. “It’s true what
they say about the outdoors.”

“Sure
thing,” SpongeBob nodded as he ran over to the fridge. “I’ll get us something.”

While
Squidward gathered his things and Plankton quietly chuckled in delight,
SpongeBob opened up the fridge and immediately noticed something out of sorts.
“Hey, guys!” he called out. “Where are the krabby patties I made yesterday?”

Patrick
walked over to SpongeBob as the latter tossed everything out of the fridge to
search for them. “Are you sure they’re not just invisible?” Patrick asked.

“Of course
I’m sure.” SpongeBob answered franticly as he held the empty fridge up and
shook it before tossing it aside. “This isn’t happening!” he shouted in panic.
“Where could they have gone?” he turned to Patrick and grabbed him by his
cloak. “You didn’t eat them, did you?”

“I don’t
know, did I?” Patrick asked, looking worried as he held his head. “What if I
did? Is that bad?” but to answer his question, they both heard his stomach
growl, showing that he hadn’t eaten anything in a while.

But this
made SpongeBob panic even more. “Oh no! What happened to them?” he cried out,
holding the sides of his square head, “This is an emergency!”

“SpongeBob,
will you relax?” Squidward demanded as he approached them. “This isn’t a big
deal! The only emergency here is that you just tossed all our food onto the
soiled ground.”

“Squidward!”
SpongeBob called out as he grabbed his shirt. “You haven’t seen them, have
you?”

“I already
said I didn’t!” Squidward shouted as he pushed SpongeBob off of him. “Now shut
up and let’s get moving.”

“He’s right,
SpongeBob.” Plankton calmly agreed as he walked up to them. “As terrible as
this is, we have to get moving. It’ll get late if we don’t-” but then he
suddenly got a stunned expression. “Wait a minute!” he pointed at Squidward.
“What is that?!”

“What?”
Squidward asked as he looked on his cloak to see something green and leafy on
it. “Eww, what is that?”

SpongeBob
pulled it off and began sniffing it. He narrowed his eyes and grimly answered,
“Lettuce…from one krabby patty.” He angrily tossed it on the ground and pointed
an accusing finger at Squidward, “So it was
you!”

“I saw the
way you were looking at them back in the village!” SpongeBob explained in a
frenzied voice that sounded almost mad. “You were jealous that I kept them for
us! Yeah, for me and Hoagie.” Then he eyes filled with tears as he took the
spatula out of his pocket and he began to gently stroke it. “And you ate them
when they should’ve been cherished for their beauty and innocence.”

But SpongeBob
turned to Patrick and lashed out at him as well, “Don’t talk to me like that,
Patrick Star! I saw you acting the same way as well! You wanted those patties
just as much as he did and you were plotting to take them until Squidward beat
you to it!”

Patrick
was so hurt by SpongeBob’s harsh words that his eyes began to water. “I was?”
his lips quivered as tears dropped down his eyes. “Oh, I should’ve known! You
have every right to be mad at me, SpongeBob!”

But
Squidward crossed his arms and yelled at the sponge. “Barnacles, SpongeBob,
have you lost your mind?”

“There you
go again, pretending like you don’t know anything!” SpongeBob continued
shouting at his two best friends. “I know the truth! You never appreciated me
or handled krabby patties the way they deserved to be handled!” he again
stroked the spatula as he spoke to it in a gentle voice, “There, there, my
precious Hoagie. Our patties are all gone thanks to him, but we can make more,
can we? Yeah, that’s right.”

Squidward
was disturbed at the sight he was seeing. But then, he decided that enough was
enough with SpongeBob’s abnormal behavior. “That’s it!” he shouted before
extending his tentacle to SpongeBob. “Give me the spatula.”

“What?!”
SpongeBob asked, in shock by Squidward’s demand.

“You heard
me!” Squidward responded impatiently as he kept his tentacle out at SpongeBob.
“Give me the spatula and I’ll carry it the rest of the way.”

Suddenly,
SpongeBob’s eyes widen in horror as he remembered Plankton’s warning to him
from earlier. He shook his head clear and glared furiously at Squidward as he
held the spatula from his view. “No!” he shouted childishly.

“Don’t
make me take it from you!” Squidward warned as he inched closer to SpongeBob.

“Mr. Krabs
isn’t here anymore! And you don’t deserve to carry it anymore with the way
you’ve been acting! Now give it here!” he quickly grabbed a hold of the
spatula, and once he did, he became even more angry than ever and growled
furiously at SpongeBob, “You’re spoiled, that’s what you are! You waste all
your time doting over disgusting junk food!”

SpongeBob
tugged the spatula towards himself and shouted back in the same manner, “You’re
wrong! Krabby patties are the greatest thing in the sea! And you’re in a
barnacle heap of wrong if you think I’m gonna let you talk that way about ‘em!”

“Oh…Look
who finally grew a vertebrae!” Squidward spat as he tugged the spatula his way.
“You wouldn’t know art if it hit you in the face! Unlike my own which are
complete works of gold!”

“Krabby
patties are gold!” SpongeBob yelled
after tugging the spatula.

“It’s
nothing compared to the wonderful joy of my clarinet!” Squidward shouted after
tugging the spatula. “I can enchant the minds, unlike you who never even
appreciated anything I do!”

SpongeBob
grunted as he tried as hard as he could to pull the spatula from Squidward’s
grip, “Because you never appreciated me or anything Hoagie and I do!” he
countered.

Squidward
did the same as he yelled, “Hoagie doesn’t deserve to be carried by you,
grease-fryer sea monkey!”

“Mean musician
man!” SpongeBob yelled back.

Squidward
again tugged on the spatula. “Annoying little loofa!”

“Big
cranky cephalopod!” SpongeBob yelled as he tugged the spatula his way.

The two
continued trading insults while fighting over the spatula. However, it was
apparent by some mysterious way that each time SpongeBob and Squidward tugged
the spatula their way; they somehow knew just what insult to call the other. But
this did not dawn on either of them since they were too blinded by their greed
and anger.

“Sandwich-loving
hole-filled little brat!”

“Suction-cup
big-nose painter!”

Patrick
and Plankton watched the whole thing from afar. Plankton seemed to be enjoying watching
the conflict go down, but Patrick seemed rather bothered by it.

Squidward
began to tug on the spatula harder that it almost lifted SpongeBob off his feet,
“Give me that spatula, you good for nothing vile cheesehead!”

But
SpongeBob retaliated by using all his strength to drop back on the ground and
tug the spatula away, “Never, you smelly inky slimy calamari-butt!”

Afterwards,
SpongeBob and Squidward growled and raised their fist at each other which then
led to violent fighting. They rolled around on the ground, punching, kicking,
and shouting at each other as they tried taking the spatula from each other.
Plankton giggled in excitement as he watched SpongeBob and Squidward in their
dust cloud of violence. But Patrick suddenly frowned in anger and marched over
to them.

He stopped
right next to them and yelled at the top of his voice, “STOP IT!!!”

Suddenly, the two froze in place with SpongeBob grabbing Squidward’s nose and
Squidward pulling SpongeBob by his tie, and both their free hand grasped onto the
spatula. They both were glancing up at Patrick, surprised to see him
intervening.

“You guys
shouldn’t be fighting.” Patrick calmly explained to the two. “You’re supposed
to be friends. Even though it’s true that Squidward never appreciates the
krabby patties SpongeBob makes, and SpongeBob never appreciates Squidward’s art
or clarinet playing; that doesn’t matter. What really matters is deciding who’s
carrying the spatula by feuding over your differences and deciding whose
personal prized possession is more important and should be treated with more
respect.”

If
Patrick’s speech was supposed to help matters, it certainly didn’t; because
SpongeBob and Squidward growled at each other once again and went right back to
fighting over the spatula and shouting insults and swears at each other as they
rolled away on the ground from their fight.

During the
fight, SpongeBob grabbed a hold of Squidward’s right arm and bit down on it
with his buckteeth, causing him to loosen his grip on the spatula, “Ow!” he
cried out in pain as SpongeBob took the opportunity to seize the spatula.

When
SpongeBob got up and ran away with the spatula, a scuffed up Squidward stood up
and held his arm. “You little savage!” he shouted angrily at SpongeBob. “You
bit me!”

“You made
me do it, Squidward.” SpongeBob responded agitatedly, looking scuffed up from
the fight as well. “You betrayed me and tried to steal Hoagie from me! You
monster…”

“You’re
the monster, SquarePants!” Squidward shouted, pointing a tentacle at him. “You’ve
changed ever since we went on this stupid journey! And all I know is that I’m
through with going any further to destroy that spatula!”

“Fine
then!” SpongeBob yelled back. “I don’t need you! I can get to the Arctic
myself!”

“No,
Patrick,” SpongeBob bitterly answered, turning away. “I’m going the rest of the
way only by myself. You can just go back home.”

Patrick
began to cry again. “But…but…”

SpongeBob
ignored his best friend’s crying and picked up his uniform hat off the ground.
He put it back on his head as he spoke to Plankton in an uncharacteristically
cold voice, “Plankton…would you mind showing me the rest of the way to the
Arctic?”

SpongeBob
pocketed the spatula and grabbed his knapsack before following Plankton further
up the mountain, not even taking one more glance at his two former companions
before disappearing out of sight.

Squidward
huffed and turned in the opposite direction to begin his long journey back
home. Patrick turned to see Squidward grab his stuff before heading down the
mountain, and then looked back toward the direction that SpongeBob left. He
bowed his head and moaned sadly at the fact of losing his best friend forever
and hurt by the unkind words he had said.

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